Category: 3D Printing

I built a d-bot 3D printer by using my other 3D printer to print out a lot of the parts for it.

It took about 6 weeks to print the pieces, and another month of long nights to get it assembled. Some pieces had to be reordered. Lots of nonsense.

Sam, why would you do this?

Glad you asked. The new printer is faster, ~2 times bigger, $100 less expensive, and generally better than my current one. The ability to use tools to create better tools is something that blows my mind. Plus, it’s just awesome to be able to download physical tools from the internet.

How does it work?

It moves a nozzle that pushes melted plastic around on a plane to build up a layer of plastic. Then, the floor drops down a bit, and it repeats the process. This builds up hundreds or thousands of layers that form into a 3D shape.

3D Printer Build Gallery

Let me see something you printed.

What tools and parts do you need to build this?

A 3D printer, or a friend with one, some cheap electrical tools, and a bunch of wire, servos, and Arduinos (well, I burned a few controller boards, so if you’re good, just one). Parts list and 3D models can be found here. I didn’t have much electrical experience before this project, and I’m no expert now. The included guide was really thorough, luckily. Still, there was a lot of trial and error.

How much did it cost?

Around $650, plus a lot of blood, sweat, and time.

Would you build another one?

It would probably be a lot faster than the first time, but I think for my next printer, I’d get something lower-maintenance. Moving forward, I want to focus on 3d design and finishing, not leveling my print bed.

Hey there! I hope you have some fun Thanksgiving plans that include lots of gorging yourself and relaxing. Today’s song is an old favorite of mine.

I’ve been looking for a project for my Tessel2 microcontroller for a few months now. It’s cool because it allows you to program hardware using Javascript, which is my favorite.

With the coming holidays, I’ll be traveling for a few days. Since I’m the proud father of a Betta fish named Rhaegar, I wanted to make sure he stayed alive and happy, so I decided to make him an automatic fish feeder.

Then, I did lots of testing. I needed to make sure the amount of food was consistent in each feeding, which was exceedingly difficult. I decreased the time between feedings and tried both worms and pellets to see which was the easiest to produce consistent results, and ended up with a mixture of both.

Hey there! I hope you’re having a great day. Today, we’re going to take a pencil drawing and convert it into a real, solid, wooden, 3D-printed thing.

Song of the Day!

Pencil Drawing to Vector Graphic

I started with this excellent drawing of a platypus by DeviantArt user blueroseval13.

Once I had the drawing I wanted to print, I brought it into Photoshop. I went into the Select menu and chose Color Range, which allowed me to select parts of the drawing based on their color. I brought the Fuzziness up to 200 (the maximum) to select every edge of the drawing.

Result after pasting into a new file and cleaning it up

I saved this new, cleaned-up drawing, and found an excellent site that converts images to the SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format that can be used by our 3D modeling software.

MatterControl image converter works well also. Another tool in the toolbox.

Thanks, Sonrisa3D!

Vector Graphic to 3D Model

After converting it to SVG, we can bring it into TinkerCad (a very simple 3D modeling webapp). After opening a new file in TinkerCad, we can select Import and choose our newly-created SVG, and it’ll look something like this:

3D Model to Real, Actual Thing

Now, we can click Design -> Download for 3D Printing and bring it into our slicer software that tells the printer what to print. Then, I scaled it to fit on my printer and hit print!

3D printing works by building up really small layers over a long period of time. Since this model was pretty boring to watch, here’s one of my more interesting prints, a model of the city of Winterfell from Game of Thrones:

…And Finally!

Testing the print with various settings.

As you can see above, I ran the print job a few times with different settings and materials to finally get the results I wanted. I started with some PETG I had laying around, and then switched to Wood once I knew it would print. I could have probably switched later and saved myself some money, but I didn’t realize how many times it would take to get the look I wanted. I didn’t think about making the walls more pronounced until a bit later, as you can see.

Let’s see how it looks on the computer to which I’m mounting it!

The print in its temporary home. I’m planning to mount LED lights behind it for a sweet glow, but this will do for now.

I went from drawing to having my first print in-hand in less than 3 hours. To my final print, maybe another 4 hours.

Why do you 3D print things? It would be faster to just buy them.

In some cases, sure, it might be easier to buy a toothbrush holder or coasters, or whatever you might need. But the cool part for me is being able to take an idea and transform it into a real, tangible thing – with just a little time and some fiddling on the computer. Plus, I spend a lot less money on things that are just little pieces of plastic, and can customize them or swap them out really easily whenever I want to suit my decorating desires or when they break.

Every household thing I print is one less that has to be shipped around the world in a wasteful box or cocooned in a plastic shell for safety. The plastic I print with is made from corn waste and other renewable resources. Essentially, it’s the self-sufficient, sustainable, and creative nature of this hobby that fascinates me so much.

Full disclosure: I get a small amount of commission if you buy anything through these links. It helps pay for my web hosting.

Thanks for reading! If you want to print this for yourself, here it is! If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.